


on hyuuga hinata

by qq_riri



Category: Naruto
Genre: Character Study, F/M, Gen, Light Angst
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-12-28
Updated: 2016-12-28
Packaged: 2018-09-12 20:53:32
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,027
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9090340
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/qq_riri/pseuds/qq_riri
Summary: a character study on hyuuga hinata and her motivations, spanning throughout her life.





	

**Author's Note:**

> written for hinata's birthday. happy birthday, my byakugan princess.

before hinata knew naruto, she knew one other. hanabi.

(before she knew hanabi, she had known neji. she loved him so much, but it was all over when she was kidnapped. she tried not to let it bother her, knowing that she was indirectly responsible for her uncle’s death. she was at fault, but all she could do was to grow stronger so that it could never happen again.)

now she knew her sweet little sister, and swore to protect her so that she would never be hurt like her mother was. like she was. like neji was. her mother was the most obvious about her pain, though. so that was who she promised to never let her sister become.

her mother was not mistreated by her father; on the contrary, they were very much in love. however, the rest of the hyuugas resented her.

her mother was a branch member. a kunoichi, till her motherhood. she had never advanced past chuunin. a disgrace to the clan. a weakling, the matriarch of the hyuuga clan. she was ridiculed by the entire clan. the main branch for being only a chuunin, for not being lady-like enough. the branch family out of bitterness that she had advanced, but they had not. _could_ not. she, once a fierce kunoichi, diminished into a meeker version of who she once was. hinata watched it happen. day by day, her mother drew into herself. she watched as her mother grew pregnant with her new sister, watched as her baby sister came into the world, watched as her mother bled from this life and into the next. she thought she saw a small smile on her face.

hinata cared for hanabi as though she were her own. effectively, she was her little sister’s caretaker. their father rarely saw his daughters—they were too young to train with him, and he was busy with his duties as the head of the hyuuga. their nursemaid was somewhat aloof, so hinata ended up comforting her sister.

then she started jyuuken training at the age of seven. before, it had not been anything special. she had been trained in basic chakra control exercises, how to effectively use her byakugan, chakra points, and conditioning. now she was old enough to learn the hyuuga way.

she did not excel in jyuuken. in fact, she was rather mediocre. but she worked hard, striving to be able to protect her little sister. oftentimes, she would end up with all sorts of minor injuries. nothing was given to her for them, so she learned to make her own ointments from her mother’s journals. they worked miracles. she never paused to think about _why_ her mother, a housewife, would need such an ointment.

when she was eight, she enrolled in the academy. and on her first day, she was lonely as she walked home. being quiet was a curse sometimes, even if it was a good trait for a kunoichi. her relatively unassuming days came to an abrupt pause when some older boys stopped her on the way home, looking to make fun of her eyes. she couldn’t say anything to defend herself, but they were stopped by a blond boy whose eyes sparkled with the very essence of life and joy. she hated that he had to intervene. she would be able to protect herself next time, she swore.

and when she saw that little boy stand up for her, get _beaten to the ground,_ she realized that _he needed protection, too._

**and she promised to be there for him, for naruto. now, later, always.**

she stood up for him, later on. intervened in his fight with the monster who called itself Pain. she threw herself in between the boy and the monster, fought the monster with all her strength (which admittedly wasn’t much at the time). she collapsed, but she got back up. (and even then, it was only thanks to sakura’s medical skills.) it was her ninja way.

and then there was the Ten-Tails. the utter horror of it all, the one shining light being the allied shinobi forces. they all fought against the same enemy, just like in an ideal world, where shinobi got along. like naruto’s dream of peace.

and then the Ten-Tails launched the deadly spikes and, oh naruto! she whipped her arm up and neutralized the spike headed toward her crush. and then they came, faster this time. so many of them, all at naruto. all she could think was _no not naruto no no no not him take my life don’t take his not him!_ and she threw herself over the hunched over boy. and in that moment, looking at his blue eyes, she saw the eight-year-old boy again. she thought that it would be okay to die like this, protecting the boy who had once protected her. returning the favor, so to speak.

but the pain didn’t come. she twisted around, looked at the air. _no no no nononononono neji no._ she stared numbly at the family member who had hated her, at the cousin she had _just_ reconciled with, at her _older brother._ her older brother who had a wooden spike impaling his chest. 

she stared and couldn’t move a muscle.

_where was her training now? where was it when she needed it? her brother. no. nonononono how could she live without him?_

but she did keep on living. she slowly healed from the wounds just like any good shinobi, did her work for the village.

she married naruto. when she was younger, this was all she dreamt of. now that she was married, she was happy, but still wondered how much happier she could have been if her older brother was still there. how much happier naruto would have been if his friend, her brother, was alive and she wasn’t.

and in the end, she just kept on protecting her husband, because a promise was a promise and hyuuga hinata never went back on her word. she protected his name by abandoning her own and taking his. and then she bore his children. she protected him, and her family. it was her promise.


End file.
